Latvala moves into the lead

A daring tyre choice paid off for Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala, who now leads Sébastien Loeb by 30 seconds.

A diagonal stud tyre set up on his Ford Fiesta RS WRC allowed the Finn to take best time on the mix of dry asphalt and icy SS2, a gamble the team hadn’t tested prior to the event. In contrast, Latvala’s team mate Petter Solberg remained on slick rubber, which saw him to second best time and third overall. Citroen will most certainly rethink their game plan at service to get back in the battle with Ford. But, let’s not forget, these are still very early days on what is by far the most complicated round of the season.

Sordo suffered suspension damage

Sébastien Ogier set a very impressive third best time in the S-WRC Skoda Fabia and is now sixth overall, 6.9 seconds behind the man who replaced him at Citroen, Mikko Hirvonen.

Dani Sordo suffered suspension damage on hi Mini JCW WRC and dropped from second to fourth overall. The Spaniard is now 44 seconds a drift of Latvala. Evgeny Novikov is seventh, followed by the S-2000 Peugeot 207 of Mathieu Arzeno, the ageless Francois Delecour and the promising Frenchman Pierre Campana in the second works Mini.

SS2
1 Latvala
2 P. Solberg+28.6s
3 Ogier+31.3s
4 Loeb+52.7s
5 Novikov+56.4s
6 Arzeno+1:03.0s
7 Abbring+1:03.3s
8 Sordo+1:05.3s
9 Hirvonen+1:11.3s
10 Andersson+1:14.9s

AFTER SS2
1 Latvala
2 Loeb+30.5s
3 P. Solberg+40.8s
4 Sordo+44.1s
5 Hirvonen+1:04.0s
6 Ogier+1:10.9s
7 Novikov+1:17.1s
8 Arzeno+1:35.7s
9 Delecour+1:49.3s
10 Campana+2:11.0s